The invention relates to vehicle seats and particularly to armrests for such seats which can be added after the seat is purchased. Seats for trucks, vans and the like are often purchased as extra cost options, especially when a suspension type seat is desired. After the seats are in use for some time a desire often arises to increase the comfort of the occupant by adding armrests. A number of seats are disclosed in the patent literature and/or are available in the marketplace which permit an armrest to be added to an upholstered seat at a later date. These include Stier U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,851; Freedman U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,799; Wallace et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,665; Hunter U.S. Pat. No. 4,118,069 and a seat sold by the Mitchell-Bentley Corporation. The latter seat requires a dozen or more parts including a pair of brackets which must be attached to the outside of the seat frame and the outside of the arm frame.
One vehicle manufacturer's specification for armrests requires that they be able to resist a 200 pound downward load and a 100 pound outward load applied 10.87" from the pivot and that no more than 0.25" permanent set can be measured after such loading. Such loading can easily be applied by a person who is on the ground and grabs the seat arm in a high cab truck to assist his entry into the cab. Available armrests of which I am aware for use in such situations are quite expensive, heavy, have many parts, and either fail to meet or are very marginal in meeting the load specifications set forth supra. Most of them are not able to conceal their mounting structure from view while others require that the arm upholstery be removed during assembly. Many are unable to provide equal tension to resist the pivotal movement of both arms on the same seat or uniform tension over the range of movement of a single arm.